The Story Behind the "American Horror Story: Freak Show" Teaser That Tricked The Internet

Filmmaker Kellen Moore wanted to pay tribute to his favorite series — and, sure, maybe land himself a job. But he's probably just pissed the network off.

Courtesy of Kellen Moore

By
Alex Rees

Jul 16, 2014

The Internet had a glorious little freak-out over the weekend, thanks to a beautiful promo teaser for FX's forthcoming series, American Horror Story: Freak Show. Viewed over 800,000 times in only a couple of days, the 20-second video showed a mournful "Fallen Angel" in her sideshow tent, only for the camera to pivot and reveal her wings are (1) stitched into her back and (2) worse still, opened/closed like a pair of curtains by the requisite creepy circus clown. GAH. Very creepy, very AHS.

Except it wasn't really very AHS, because it wasn't a real promo at all, which FOX network representatives soon made clear in a statement. Instead, it's the work of 26-year-old filmmaker and ardent American Horror Story fanboy Kellen Moore and his team. Moore spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about his love of all things Ryan Murphy, how and why the promo came about, and also why it's since disappeared from YouTube. (Spoiler: He blames FOX.)

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Moore (right) on set during the 'Freak Show' promo's filming.

Courtesy of Kellen Moore

"In film school they teach you how to make movies, obviously, but it's this very stereotyped, old-fashioned idea that if you go ahead and make good work, you're going to be set as a filmmaker and that's that. I graduated about two years ago from Chapman University in California, and boom, [I'm] thrown into the real world workplace where it is nearly impossible to book anything as a director starting out. That's why everyone goes and does internships, takes assistant-level jobs, and becomes Hollywood slaves. How else do you get a start in this business?

"I didn't want to do that 'traditional route' — I just wanted to keep directing. But the work I've done since graduating, for the most part working with brands and agencies, is miserable — you don't get control and you don't get a voice. I have always been a huge fan of promo work and of amazing title sequences. So I had this crazy idea: Why don't I just go ahead and make these promos? Sure, they're not official but I should just do them ... and make people think they're official. [At the time] I was a big fan of the A+E show Bates Motel, so I made a promo to promote the show's second season — the Internet received it as the real deal.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"Within two days of it hitting the Internet, I got a call from the network and, in a nutshell, for nearly a year after that I was working with A+E to create an actual, real-life promo for the show — it got me a job, basically. [Ed. note: A representative from A+E confirms Moore was hired to do an official promo, with Bates Motel star Nestor Carbonell, "and it was great!"] It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life, the high of highs! But then when it ended it was like low of lows, because I just wanted to keep doing it.

"So I was in this little slump, and I thought to myself, I don't want to say that lightning can strike twice but why don't I try it again? Except this time let's go after the show that I care about the most. I've watched every promo that American Horror Story has put out and I have so much respect for Ryan Murphy's ability to market his shows; I feel like he has this formula down. I wanted to pay homage to that.

"There is nothing more I'd like to do than direct promos for American Horror Story, so I was like, I'm just going to make that dream happen. I'm not going to wait for someone to hand it to me, maybe 10 years from now; I'm just going to do it and hopefully people will like it. So from March, basically, until now [my partners and I] developed what I thought should be a Freak Show promo — I wasn't trying to anticipate or scoop the show, but offer my own take. This was about me saying, as a fan, an avid viewer, and a respectful filmmaker, what would I want the first promo to look like.

Courtesy of Kellen Moore

"I [started work] on designs and storyboards, being very specific to my vision. I didn't want it to be too circus; I didn't want it to have that sideshow tent feel, the typical red and white stripes — because Ryan Murphy doesn't do things on the nose. American Horror Story: Coven could have easily been this cliché Salem witch trial thing, but instead it was like every day was a photo shoot on that series. I knew that Freak Show was being set in the 1950s, and I thought, Why not add a little old Hollywood, a little Gatsby to that. I decided to go with a simple canvas tent, sepia-toned, and tone down the carnival references too — I put in one elephant and then some oranges on the side just to reference that it's Florida. I really wanted this to be classy and its own kind of beast, rather than something that's so expected because I feel like everything Ryan Murphy does is something you wouldn't expect. That was the goal.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"Character-wise, I ran through a couple of different ideas: My first concept involved Siamese twins, [but] I didn't want to tackle anything that could have been too central to the plot. That's why we didn't go after a bearded lady or anything obvious — or the Siamese twins after all. It was Siamese twins for so long, but then I thought, Of course Ryan Murphy is going to do something with Siamese twins. So I changed the idea up to this angel-like character that I felt was more original, and then days later Sarah Paulson tweeted that crazy photo:

"I wanted to treat the promo properly, like I was working on it at an ad agency. It took a lot of resources and effort and money to put that promo together — I'd say this cost between $4,500 and $5,000 to produce. I didn't want to make that investment, financial or time, on something that wasn't really, really well thought out. So about two months back [my partners and I] started blocking down the concept; I then went ahead and did my own first pass at the storyboards. We couldn't pay people so it was very much a 'buy onto our dream, buy onto our passion' pitch, and we found an amazing storyboard artist and she made us animatics that are literally the promo shot by shot, hand-drawn. It was such a solid guide.

"As wacky as this all was, it worked. People came on board to help. Our day of shooting, even though it was an unofficial venture, it felt official. We had on-set catering! As a bunch of kids just trying to find work in this unforgiving business, to be able to do something out of passion and take a step back at the end of the day and know we did good work and had fun while we did it was the best thing we could have asked for. Then for it to blow up the way it did ... it's amazing. It's a total bummer that Fox isn't embracing it, but what can you do?

#Nopromo

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"This is the most frustrating part — Fox went ahead and claimed ownership of my promo. They're claiming that they [have the copyright] to the content and I think that's just not true! They went ahead with a 'takedown notification' and had it removed from YouTube; they've had it pulled from everywhere, and the thing that's insane is that, really, the only thing in my promo that I believe Fox technically owns is the FX logo at the end — but even that I 'built.' It wasn't an image ripped off of Google; I took a vector file and made a 3-D image off of it. I mean, since when are YouTube videos pulled because of a logo? I really wish Fox could have come forward and said, 'Hey, we didn't make this, but congrats,' or whatever, and just embraced it rather than make it disappear.

"I have emailed [FX executives] and I was very friendly, saying, 'Hi, I'm responsible for this, please let me know if you'd like to chat further.' I haven't heard back from any, so I'm stuck having a back-and-forth with YouTube over who owns the promo. Who are they going to believe, though, an anonymous YouTube account or Fox?

"I'm not going to lie, I have moments [where I'm really frustrated]. I'll just say ... Ryan Murphy is a mastermind, but he is also incredibly protective of his work and his aesthetic. He's like the Christopher flipping Nolan of television, because he cares so deeply about the vision and the presentation, everything. I can't blame him when, sure, someone comes and pulls the rug out from him — and not to toot my own horn, but the response was so incredible that, really, they now have to take into consideration what we did moving forward. That's flattering [for me], but it's probably obnoxious for them. But also, it's free press — how can that be a negative? I could understand if we were doing something defamatory to the brand but we were just embracing it.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"So at this point the goal more than anything is just to be able to put a face to my work. It's a bit of a Cinderella story except now I'm turning back into a pumpkin. With my whole Bates Motel gig, nobody ever knew it happened! As much as I'd like to say there's another promo in the works, more than anything I would like to just get a job … and then there'd be another one in the works, I suppose, except I'd be getting paid for it. Really, this is just me waving around saying, shouting, 'Someone, please employ me.'"